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Written after his departure from the military, The Ghost~Pop Tape finds Devon Hendryx at his lowest point. The rapper-producer then known for his extremely unique style of Cloud Rap, which meshed together elements of R&B and Plunderphonics to create an almost entirely new concoction, struggled to get any popularity in the internet sphere, much against his wishes, so after his fourth album, The Rockwood Escape Plan, he decided that his next album would be his last, threatening to commit suicide if it wasn't successful.
The Ghost~Pop Tape was originally conceived as another Cloud Rap album, much like its successor, but evolved and mutated his style into something entirely unique that hasn't been exactly recreated since. There's still hints of hiphop across the entire album, but the main influence then became ambience, which the album is absolutely flooded in.
The first iteration of the album to be released into the public, in August of 2013 (predating every posterior release of the album by a month) came in form of The Ghost Pop Movie, this being an album movie consisting of edited-together clips of movies, anime, random clips, and pornographic material (If you've ever seen or been interested in VJing, it's basically like a 50-something minute demo reel. It's rough and delves into much of the same, but it compliments the album in a very beautiful and intriguing way). It was uploaded to Vimeo and Xvideos for a brief period in time.
Despite the excellent work in all fields, the album garnered nearly no popularity on the internet, spawning nearly no interviews or reviews from the time, but thankfully the mastermind behind the album did not go through with his suicide attempt and started releasing music under the now much more recognizable alias, JPEGMAFIA.
"Beyond my situation
I made this album despite the fact that I don't really have a future
I made this album because I love making music
And I hope that when people hear it, they hear someone who's genuinely in love with what he's doing"
- Sakura
This is the best album I've ever heard.
I'm not one to write reviews, in fact, this website wasn't ever intended to host my reviews or opinions on music, but the excellence on display with this album and with other select albums I'll review really made it an essential choice for me. It's also particularly hard to word what I like about an album when there's SO MUCH that I like of this album. As you may notice below, I go into an extreme level of detail about every aspect of the album, every version, every cut song, absolutely everything about this album. I really have never found myself liking an album so much.
To start off with the most obvious thing: This album is as bleak as few others.
The writing is bleak and hopeless, highlighting a lost battle with depression. The lyricism itself is on another level. Coming from someone who was very much incapable of writing thoughtful bars, often going for a more witty approach to writing, this album is very much a surprise. The lyrics mark a very contrasting change with the rest of his discography, with him embracing the misery put on display. The production very much so reflects this from every aspect of it. You'll find every song full of unique, ethereal synths and percussion plastered onto a very heavily reverberated canvas, being distorted and compressed to hell and back. The result of this is one of the most unique sounding albums you can find.
Overall, I find it to be such a masterclass in everything it does, from its left-field production to its writing, that I really can't imagine anything will top this anytime soon for me.
For a longer conclusion, click hereThe Ghost~Pop Tape wasn't always just an album. Although it started and ended as one, in the middle, it was just a soundtrack. Around August of 2013, the GenY5 movie was released onto the world, featuring a collection of rather psychedelic porn, anime, and videogame clips, with other miscellaneous footage also thrown in. The movie (to my knowledge) was originally uploaded on Vimeo, and later published on XVideos, but both of the uploads are down.
I personally find the movie interesting, more as a perfectly exemplary recreation of Devon's life. A vicious cycle of dopamine which he kept circling into further and further at the lack of success with his music.
It's sad, very sad, but I find the movie flawed regardless.
It should go without saying that I find the editing interesting (very interesting in fact, I find vj-ing a very interesting thing and this movie is essentially that across a larger length of time), but it's still amateurish. I didn't find that many of the clips were used tastefully or to really drive anything home, but Neon Kitchen⁴ and Call Me Maybe's sections were absolutely masterful. It really recontextualized those songs for me. I'm also a big fan of the raw take of Neon Kitchen⁴'s singing, but that's just a me thing.
Overall, I'm not sure what I'd rate the movie. I've given it an 8/10 in the past and I'm certain that rating wouldn't change if I watched it again, but you can't ever really know.
If you're a fan of the album, you should watch the movie. Otherwise, I wouldn't really recommend it. A lot of songs are missing or handled differently, and the tracklist isn't the same as in the album and is missing some pretty crucial songs.
1. Ballad of A Poor Man: The album starts off very quietly. Sniffling, a phone ringing, some singing, a matchbox, some iconic whistling, nothing much. Then the bass and keyboard kick in.
"I know I'm going around in circles baby
You know..."
In an almost lost manner, the album kicks off brutally. Perfectly encapsulating the ambiance, Devon proclaims the loop he finds himself in. A depressive state that he can't get out of, passing time by doing whatever he can. Bouts of meaningless joy in the forms of videogames, movies, sex and pornography, fill his empty life. He recognizes this circle, but he can't ever get out of it.
"March 2nd, I was cursed
I never felt my body hurt
Imma end up in a hearse
By March 21st"
The poor man finds himself feeling like God himself has made his life impossible, that everything has gone against him.
"I wanna kill myself
But I'm too big of a coward
I have no self control
I have no power"
The poor man, in a moment of complete and total honesty, writes forth one of the best verses I've ever read. There's not many better ways to express what this level of depression and loneliness feels like. Devon has nearly completely given up on everything. He's ready to kill himself. But he can't. There's still something out there in the world or in any galaxy, pushing him to continue living. He can't bring himself to do so much so as to end his sad life. The poor man keeps living.
"I owe the government hella cash
And I can't get it hella fast
They gon' take it out my account
And imma die broke"
He does live, but not without hurdles. He's still being cursed by whatever hatred God has for him, by all of the misfortunes that were set out for him.
"Imma die a broke man
Not a cent in my hand
Life ain't fair
All kids beware"
The poor man tries to warn every person younger than him, every person living the same way that he is. He's trying to warn people of what their life might look like.
"I've never met another one, never met another one
But my face gon' meet this gun
The poor man cries out on the last verse of the song. Even though he doesn't want anyone to end up like him, he laments this, as he can't find someone to love or to truly form a bond and relationship with.
"And I don't care where I go
And I don't care where you're from
Give me a sign"
2. ♥: This is the first of 7-ish interludes in the album. It's also the loudest song in the album by a very long shot, employing the usage of an air guitar, sirens, a very overblown synth with notable sibilance, and a loud pad that clips. It's most certainly a bit of a sensory shocker, but it's a great song regardless. Devon's background vocals in this song come off almost the same way that someone talking to you on the radio does. Heavily distorted, nearly intelligible, it almost reminds one of tapping in to a police radio wavelength and not understanding a word of the code they're speaking.
3. HBK: Devon Hendryx is the Heart Break Kid.
For the unaware, HBK is a cover of Shawn Michaels' intro song (Michaels being a prolific WWE/WWF wrestler). The lyrics are, to my knowledge, fully unchanged. Given the context of Devon's life, with Devon stating in an interview that his and Marvin Gaye's childhoods were very similar. For the sake of not being weird about shit I don't know, I won't try to connect the lyricism much to what I know about Marvin Gaye, but it definitely recontextualizes the song in a very haunting way.
4. "Violent fighting to come again!": This is the second interlude on the album, marking a break after one of the saddest songs in the album. The pad here is pretty nice although I always found it strange that it didn't transition from HBK's ending but rather from an earlier point in the song. As I mention much further below (in the Remastered Version's section), I find these interludes to be very necessary to maintaining the pace of the album. I jokingly say that not including Pu$$y #3 inbetween Call Me Maybe and Bubblegum Crisis would make the average listener want to kill themselves, but there's truth to what I'm saying. Call Me Maybe is such a potent song that you HAVE to give the listener a small bit of relief before you start off the next "real" song.
Revelation 6:8
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
This is one of two songs in the album one could really call Cloud Rap or anything similar to it. This song in particular is a distinctly busy one, with vocal samples and objects clattering strewn throughout the song.
"I'm watching, on the sideline like Robin
I told them, "Let me get the hostage"
They told me, "Batman runs Gotham"
I'm Rockwood, I don't do options
Either my way or the highway in your Datsun
Tried running but I caught them
Lit a match in the gas tank whilst they wasn't watching"
The first verse incorporates a louder, almost brass-sounding synth, and percussion. There's constant themes of violence and injustice present on the song, with the starting few lines being exemplary of this. Devon would later interpolate this verse for the song Reaper.
Tell mom to pay my rent and I swear on her son
I'll survive off of Twinkies and popsicles
Continuing the themes of poverty found on Ballad of A Poor Man, Devon finds himself begging to his very mother for a way out of the poverty he's stuck living in. The song ends with the following lines, serving a stark reminder of its ideas.
This is also the song that begins a common saying in the album, "sex ain't nothing, if it can't fit in my ride."
"Five years there, looking for a remedy
Gimme one shot like the driver did Kennedy
I'm Al Snow with a stripper pole
Now take a look up in the sky
A pale horse, behold!"
A pale horse most likely refers to the Bible verse I showed above. Devon is clearly a very religious man, whether that be by positive influence of the Christ's teachings onto him or not. The verse highlights Death's carriage, often represented as a white, skeletal horse, with Death and its horse having the power of the whole earth with them. Devon uses this to show how at any time he could be taken by Death's grasp, much like he states on Ballad of A Poor Man. At any point he could be brought to suicide, at any point he could kill himself in any of a myriad of ways. Death is in the sky.
From The 27 Club
The Earth is my bathroom, the sky is my mirror
From Digital Blackface
The army told me "Be all you can be"
Put a gun to the mirror
I'll be anyone but me
Bathrooms are present extensively across Devon's discography. Not necessarily lyrically, but many of the songs from The Ghost~Pop Tape were recorded in bathrooms, such as Call Me Maybe and LIARA.
6. M.U.G.E.N.: After the blaring, haunting verses delivered on Behold! A Pale Horse, M.U.G.E.N. presents us with an even more abrasive beat, employing screaming and some of the only real percussion in the whole album. This is one of few "beats", given that it originally had rapping on it, but it still has that Devon flair, with it eventually dissipating into the very soothing background pad.
7. Porn for Percussion: It's hard to even know where to begin with this song. Cobbled up from porn samples as percussion and paired up with a pad and an oscillating synth, the song builds up on the previous, magnificent 6-track run, even further.
"It feels so empty
But I got me a friend
And I like him, no"
The song builds up from Devon's previous expressions of struggles with love and loneliness. This core pillar of the song, although seemingly not relevant now, makes itself very apparent on LIARA. This section is also interpolated on the song I Wish PAC Was Still Here.
"Who in the world, I know a girl
Take me outside, take me outside"
Devon cries out for a girl that will love him back the same way he does, before the breakdown of the song, repeating the line
"Suck that cock
Suck that cock
Suck that cock
Suck that cock"
The breakdown itself is one of the most beautiful moments in the album. It's meshes together all the elements of the song and brings up the pad and samples to be just a tad louder, highlighting them over the already busy nature of the song, in what becomes a masterful display in production.
If it weren't for so many other great songs on this album, this one would be my favorite. This is truly one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and I will never stop giving it praise. Coincidentally with the themes of the album, I find this song to be very romantic.8. Untitled¹: Avid Devon listeners might notice that this is Neon Kitchen from JOECHILLWORLD, slowed down significantly. The original is easily one of the best songs on the album, save not for the likes of 1989 (Michelle's Song).
9. God Bless My Homegirls: This is easily one of the calmest songs in the album, serving almost as a breather for the insane 8-track run.
In contrast to the majority of the album, where Devon is actively praying for his own salvation, this song has him praying for the few friends he does have, to be saved. Devon describes his hopes over a girl, who doesn't seem to be very into him, and it repeats the classic mantra of the album,
"Sex ain't nothing
If it can't fit in my ride"
10. [Missingimagefile_ maladaptivedaydreaming.gif]: Some people might consider this song an interlude, but I don't really think of it like that at all. It's the second part to the previous song, God Bless My Homegirls, following off from the beeping heard in the last section of it. The song itself is one of the musically harshest cuts from the album, having a very audible beat, vocals, and repeated moaning. The song ends like no other in the album, with what sounds like a cord being pulled out and the audio glitching, seemingly from a stretched bass note messing with the frequencies.
*TGPT Error The song you are trying to use is corrupted or incomplete. This could be the result of a damaged disk, a failed download or a virus.
You may want to contact the author of this song to obtain a new copy.
It may be possible to skip this check using the /NCRC command line switch (NOT RECOMMENDED)*
11. Untitled²: Absolutely love this song, even if it's just an interlude. This is one of the simpler songs on the album, only really consisting of three very uniquely sequenced synthesizers, and Devon's classic singing, but it's still one of the stronger cuts personally. I'm a big fan of the drop, I find that it introduces the percussion masterfully. If you pay attention, you can hear Devon still singing on about Montebello's High School Prom. Guess he must've been nostalgic for JOECHILLWORLD again.
12. Neon Kitchen⁴: This song and Call Me Maybe mark a significant change in the album's mood. Not to say the previous songs aren't sad, they very much are and they're very much extreme expressions of depression, but the following amp everything up to another level.
Bang, bang, in my Neon Kitchen
The first few minutes of the song are characterized by the chorus and the intro, lasting nearly two minutes. The chorus itself introduces a very dreamy synth, panning from the left and right with every note, and the song's most recognizable element, the kick pattern. Three kicks, split into two groups (1-2).
"All this neon on me, so you know I need some damn help
Doctor said I'm out of luck, I said I'll help my damn self"
I feel like I'm okay, I feel like I'm okay
I made some food, I made some friends, I had some fun today
Almost hopefully, Devon brags a lot on this song, and he expresses one of the only moments of happiness in the entire album. I believe this to be because of what the song is named after.
Neon Kitchen⁴ is, as the name implies, the fourth in a series of songs with the same name, but why is it named Neon Kitchen to begin with?
On God & Earrings
Cooking up that coke in my Neon Kitchen, boy
And [?] stay with it 'cause he don't stay with it
Devon's Neon Kitchen is the place where he cooks cocaine. The only time he ever feels happy in any way is when he's on drugs. The cycle never ends.
13. Call Me Maybe: I'll get it out of the way. This is the best song I've ever heard. Nothing comes as close as this.
Left image from the movie, right image from the music video.
The pad, really just being a reversed lead played by Japanese composer Nijine (Akito Matsuda), kicks off the song. Devon starts singing the first notes of Carly Rae Jepsen's iconic hit, sniffling along the way.
"Don't leave me
Don't leave me alone"
Devon kicks off the song by repeating this several times before the first verse. A stark reminder of the loneliness surrounding the song, with the sweltering pad in the background and the WWE fight that starts soon after serving as his only accompaniment. No friends, no relations, no money. A broke and desolate man just singing his heart out.
"Trade my soul for a wish
Pennies and dimes for a kiss
I wasn't looking for this
But now you're in my way"
The original song, a bright and upbeat anthem about sharing a number in hopes of a relationship, is recontextualized into a much more bleak state here. Devon is willing to go as far as he can for a relationship, for anything to pull him out of his depression, for anything to give him the success he's so incapable of having.
"High like the motion
All night I was stroking
Take time out to stroke to you
Where do you think you're going, baby?"
These are the only new lyrics in the entire song. Devon's porn addiction put into play. It's harmed his life so much that he can't help but understand the consequences of it. No longer is porn just the main footage used for his music videos, but it's now the single biggest factor harming him. His depression is only further fueled by it, by the unrealistic standards set in pornography, that he can't ever get to.
"It's hard to look right at you, baby
So here's my number, so call me, call me"
Devon can't bring himself to even finish the chorus. He's stuck begging for attention, for a way out. This is the last thing he manages to say in the entire song, the rest of the vocals being whistling and the WWE fight in the background.
This fight was the first ever Hell In A Cell match, where they locked Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker in a massive 16ft tall chain-link cube. The fight was prefaced by The Undertaker's loss to Bret Hart in August of 1997, a fight which Shawn Michaels intervened in, and the following fight, ruled a no-contest, held at the Louisville Gardens in September.
The match transitioned from inside the cell, to the outside (as a cameraman was injured, leading to the opening up of the cell), to the top of the cell, and back in. In the midst of the fight is when The Undertaker's brother was introduced, who ironically only really ended up harming The Undertaker. Michaels, heavily injured, managed to pin The Undertaker for the victory.
If you know anything about wrestling, or about the album, you'll know that Shawn Michaels' theme song is the one interpolated for HBK (Heart Break Kid), giving the decision of using the audio on this fight a new twist.
"And another kickout by Michaels. Watch out for Shawn Michaels, he's not ready to give up nor quit on this young man."
The song, before the outro, only gets to the first bit of the fight. Shawn Michaels is still being mauled by The Undertaker (he wouldn't really begin to get a hold of The Undertake until around 10 minutes after), with The Undertaker mowing down Shawn Michaels repeatedly.
As unexpectedly as The Undertaker's brother, Kane, is brought out on the fight, the pad ends. Shawn Michaels, pulled up and beaten down by The Undertaker with a pace few could imitate, is thrown to the side of the ring.
Devon plays the entirety of the pad sample without any chopping, as the fight goes on, much louder now. Devon, the Heart Break Kid himself, is trying with all he can to live. He's giving everything he can towards everyone that's wronging him. This embodiment of the fight, both literally and figuratively, fully encompass Devon's struggles up to this point.
He wouldn't know it for nearly half a decade after this song was made, but much like Shawn Michaels on this fight, he won.
14. Pu$$y #3: The tone of the album has changed completely. Following Call Me Maybe, this song tries to put on... anything, really. It's another beat, much like M.U.G.E.N., but something about the last song is still wearing off here, and as much as the repetition of "Pussy #3" tries, it's incapable of changing anything.
15. Bubblegum Crisis: Named after the anime, which Devon has tattoo'd onto his body (if you look on the original Black Ben Carson you can see "Knight Sabers" on his left arm, this being the group of heroines the anime centers around).
"Who's telling all the things I gotta say?
I'd like to know"
In the song, Devon finds himself in a state of lavishness and lust expressed in much of the album, but exemplified most here. He shows how he's not even in control of himself or of his relationships.
16. LIARA: A confession like no other.
LIARA finds Devon building one of the most mellow songs in the album, with swirling pads and a synth dropping in the background. The drumline is iconic, trying to settle itself onto the little ground the song has.
Every song on the album has talked extensively about Devon's love and relationships, in particular his struggles to get on with the women he desires so much, but on this song, he reveals his true love interest in what becomes the most beautiful and romantic in the whole album.
"'Cause I got a girlfriend
And you got a girlfriend
When we get together
It's like a love in a whirlwind
When we get together
It's like a love in arms"
This chorus alone entirely recontextualizes the album and Devon's struggle with love. The song doesn't stop there, but just this changes the game entirely. A hopeless, bisexual romantic tries to date, tries to be famous and successful, and keeps getting brought down time and time again, running out of hope further and further every time.
17. O Superman: The last interlude of the album. The song is LIARA, reversed. A desolate Devon finds himself trying to go back through the songs he's already made, trying to establish new prayers in them.
"O Superman
Won't you come and take me down?
Won't you come and take me down?"
Devon finds himself praying to Superman, the fictional being himself, to swoop through the skies and save Devon, to take him out from the path to heaven that he's built himself. But, can he really do that?
18. Untitled³: A cash register clicking. Beeping. Moaning.
Untitled³, the closer to the album, is on a completely different state than Ballad of A Poor Man.
"I tell how it feels to kill a man. too personal take off", states the liner note of one of the versions of the album. This last hoorah kicks off with an oscillating pad. Ethereal like any other in the album.
"Do you see or not?"
With this question, Devon starts singing and rapping. Quieter and more compressed than on the rest of the album, just a husk of who he was.
"It's not enough
It's not enough
It's not enough"
The very last thing before the breakdown. The pad strengthens, pumping as loud as it can get. Not a word is uttered by Devon until afterwards.
"In Jesus' name I pray"
A cash register clicking. Beeping. Moaning. Silence.
"The Ghost~Pop Tape is over
The Ghost~Pop Tape is over
The Ghost~Pop Tape is over
The Ghost~Pop Tape is over"
19. ODB (Live @ Central Station)This is the first of two songs recorded on May 17th of 2012 at Central Station (A whole 13 years ago now!), and I'm glad they were included in the album. The song interpolates Ol' Dirty Bastard's Shimmy Shimmy Ya, a song which, I'll be honest, I hate, and turns it into an absolutely beautiful display of ambience and shit you can't really even call Cloud Rap. There's the presence of beautiful, swirling pads, there's percussion, there's a loud bass going on in the background, but damn. What is this? It's hard for me to assign a genre to this album, and in particular to these songs. Although largely unrelated to the sound of this song, something about it reminds me of James Ferraro's music, which I guess could best be described as experimental, hypnagogic, ambient and electronic pop. Ehae pop!
The song itself is fantastic too, I find myself muttering this part way too often:
"Baby wanna chop me
Baby wanna screw me
Shawty she likes me
But that she never gon' pursue me"
20. Piano Baby (Live @ Central Station): As nature of being two songs recorded in the same place at the same time, live, Piano Baby is a direct continuation of ODB. This song isn't a cover, but it's easily one of the best live songs I've ever heard. It's a much more formed beat than the previous, having a more clearer footing with the samples and the percussion, but where it really comes into work is with how it combines these elements together, and with the inclusion of the namesake of the song, the piano. It sounds almost like a glass piano, diffusing infinitely into the halls of Central Station. Devon doesn't rap over the song, as opposed to the previous, but I understand why that is. What can you even do on a song like this? You really just gotta let it breathe.
The clicking on this song is also a very nice touch. It sets a rhythm to the song, it gives it more of that footing that these loosier-sounding songs can oftentimes not have. The most relevant part of the song, however, is the outro. Gone is the vocal sample, and gone are the drums. It's the pad, the piano, and the bass against Central Station. The pad picked for this song is absolutely beautiful, especially when it's finally played out in full at 5:05, and the way that it later meshes with the bass at 5:50 is just so far detached from an average song. It's really a masterpiece.
21. Sakura: I'm convinced this three track run is better than most albums I've heard. As much praise as I gave ODB and Piano Baby, this song takes the cake out of the three. What the hell. It's hard to believe that this is Devon's biggest song, but the beautifully calm, almost relaxing nature of the song makes that make a lot of sense.
You actually can hear the ending speech here, if you turn your audio all the way up, but I'm not sure it was intentionally meant to be this quiet. Regardless, the song's implementation of some simple guitar notes, the sweltering and vibrating pad, the bass that drops every so often, the little lead sound, and the hats, all come together for 2 perfect minutes of music. There's not a lot I can say about the song, but I absolutely love it. It's as calm as calm gets. It almost feels like this song is so sad that it's wrapped back around to being happy.
This also happens to be my most played song ever, sitting at over 2700 plays.22. Pardon Me Michael (Demo): This is just a worse demo of Silver St. Cloud. Sorry to say it. The song is largely fine, and I do appreciate the sparser vocals brought forth by Devon, something which every other person that this beat was lended to was incapable of doing successfully, but the loud bang at the intro, and the fact that there's a better version of this song out there, really don't leave me coming back to it too often. I still love it to bits though, I find the pad in the background to be absolutely hypnotizing and the "I got it" vocal sample really gets stuck on you.
23. Pizzicato Five: If I liked ODB and Piano Baby not so much for their writing, but for their production, then this song is a perfect blend of both, bringing in one of Devon's best ever beats with two of his best verses ever, rivaling songs like 1989 (Michelle's Song), Ballad of A Poor Man, and Porn for Percussion.
I don't actually have that much to say about the song, but it displays a perhaps bleakly hopeful Devon.
"I believe in a god that would hear me
I believe in a god that could hear me
I beileve in a god that can hear me
And the only thing he says is to fear me"
The song was, perhaps infamously, recorded at the Atlanta Airport back in 2012, and was originally released as a single to promote the then upcoming ♥ EP.
24. BBTG (2011 Demo): Although easily one of my least favorites, this is probably one of the more interesting songs to discuss in the context of the Expanded Version.
Since this version was released in New Year's Eve 2019, it means that at this point in time, JPEGMAFIA had already released All My Heroes Are Cornballs, and this album has the song BasicBitchTearGas. For this given reason, I guess that JPEGMAFIA must've been feeling nostalgic about The Ghost~Pop Tape, since the Expanded Version was one of two changes in this period of time.
The other change was that the album finally became downloadable on its bandcamp, something that wasn't possible for the previous SIX YEARS of the album existing.
Regardless of its unique context and insight into the choice of making an Expanded Version of this album, the song is pretty boring. It's personally my least favorite on the album, being a very minimalistic cover of the 90s girlband, TLC's, No Scrubs. As you can expect from a Devon cover, it sounds absolutely nothing like the original song and even bringing it up is pretty pointless.
25. Porn for Percussion (Betamax Version): If the Expanded Version didn't have 4 perfect songs on it, this would be my pick for the favorite. This song alone would be enough to justify the existance of an Expanded Version.
As I explain further below, The Ghost~Pop Tape comes in many versions and flavors. Notably, some of the first iterations of the album didn't have Porn for Percussion finished, and they instead used this version.
Porn for Percussion (Betamax) is a raw and scary insight into Devon. The whole album is, but something about this song scratches another itch. Something about the guitar, the smoke alarm, the feedback on the mic repeating time and time again, I'm not sure what it is, but it compels me to an absurd extent.
Everything from the "studio" version is present, in some way, barring the more electronic elements, but the whistling, the singing, it's all there. The core idea of the song is in place, and stripping it of its synths and pads really gives the lyrics and vocals in general a lot more room to shine. Where the VCR version stands on its feet for being beautifully produced, this one stands on its feet for being beautifully written. The choice of an acoustic guitar, although deliberate by not having any other way to record a demo for the song, absolutely fits the essence of the song that the VCR version does not. The repetition of the chorus having so many clashing sound effects and vocal takes really manages to make the song feel just as busy as the original, yet much emptier. But this isn't my favorite part of the song, as much as I like it. The outro is on another level.
I don't know what he's saying. I couldn't really tell you. From what I gather, it's some section of the breakdown present in the VCR version, but to me it sounds like he's throwing in some other lines too. Regardless, the loud noise and the quiet vocals on this part work together in a very haunting way. I can't give this album any more praise than I've already given it, for there's nothing more I CAN add to praise, but truly, this is as sad as some of the lowest lows of the original get.
Unintelligible singing closes off the Expanded Version. A cry that can't be helped. For every battle that Devon won, he faced a much tougher battle that he lost. Betamax paints a vision of a future where Devon lost.
As it turns out, not all versions of The Ghost~Pop Tape were created equal.
As is currently known, there's somewhere around 5 to 6 versions of the album with some major and minor differences inbetween. Some of the differences were highlighted above, but that's not all of them.
IMPORTANT: A LOT OF INFORMATION WAS TAKEN FROM THE DEVON ARCHIVE NEOCITIES PAGE, HOWEVER, THE DEVON ARCHIVE WEBSITE DOESN'T LIST GENY5 AS VERSION 1 OF THE ALBUM, BUT I DO. WHEN I TALK ABOUT "V4" I'M REFERRING TO WHAT THE WEBSITE CALLS "V3" RELEASED IN JANUARY OF 2014.
Version 1, GenY5 (September 2013): This is the first non-movie version of the album, and by extension it comes with a lot of drawbacks. Most notably, yes, GenY5. The title and cover (the cover is similar to one of the pages from the PDF) are very different, but the songs not so much.
There's not many notable differences aside from the obvious ones. Porn for Percussion [at this point in time, the acoustic Betamax version] and Missingimagefile are swapped with each other, and the tracklist is largely the same. It doesn't include LIARA, but it does include an over 4 minute instrumental of Black Materia, which is longer than every other version surfacing.
Version 2, The Ghost~Pop OST (October 2013): This is the version I'm least knowledgeable about and also seemingly one of the least interesting versions. It's mostly only notable for being the first to bear the Ghost~Pop name and it features the (now) alternate cover, which is coincidentally the one I use for my download of the album. It has Untitled²'s name misspelt as Unititled² and I find it kind of funny that it took around six months for this to be fixed.
Version 3 (December 2013): There's no download currently surfacing of this album, but the only thing we do know is that it added LIARA to the album, and to quote the Devon Archive page, "thank goodness it did."
Version 4 (January 2014): This is one of my favorite versions. It's not particularly notable for any changes, with the bigger ones being the nameswap of Porn for Percussion with [Missingimagefile_ maladaptivedaydreaming.gif], Porn for Percussion becoming the VCR version (fully produced) instead of the Betamax version (acoustic demo), and ODB's intro being a unique length different from V5 and from ODB / Piano Baby Medley.
However, every song on this version has comments under the files.
Since this is my personal website, I'm not going to skip any and am instead going to dump them all:
Not sure what LIARA's comment means but I find all the comments very interesting nonetheless. It's not often you see such insight on albums.
Version 5 (March 2014): This version is, believe it or not, largely similar to V4. The only relevant changes include fixing the typo on Unititled² and altering the tracklist to include no bonus songs
Ben Yhudda Version (March 2014): This version is strange. As the Devon Archives page for it states, Devon was looking to distance himself from the alias around this time. It is so that he created a new bandcamp page, called Ben Yhudda, in which he released the entirety of the album as singles with covers. A few additional songs were also released on this bandcamp (which would later be renamed from Ben Yhudda, to Darkskin Manson, to JPEGMAFIA), including GOD and the currently unknown song AJ Lee. I have no clue as to why he did this. All of the songs ("singles") included covers (although some are missing) which you can download here. This bandcamp has every song's length marked as being significantly longer than on the album, possibly indicating that they were slowed down. Here's a comparison between V4 (since, despite being released a few days after V5, still has the spelling error on Unititled², leading me to believe this is V4)
Expanded Version (New Year's Eve 2019): This is the "main" version of the album. It's the 18 songs in their final form, and the new songs (after which this version is titled) are the main attraction. Notable differences from the previous versions include removing Untitled³'s outro, and a version of ODB with crackling in it (which keep in mind, no prior version had crackling in it). This is probably your best bet for listening to the album. It's easily accessible and has next to nothing of relevancy missing from it (as much as I like Untitled³'s outro).
Expanded Version (Bandcamp Post-Remaster): The bandcamp page is a mess now. It includes the entire Expanded Version tracklist as the first 25 songs, then the 17 track remaster tacked on.Remastered Version (October 2023): This one is pretty controversial. In my opinion? Don't listen to this.
In late 2023, JPEGMAFIA took a decision to revisit the album again, having teased "3 albums" for 2023 (these three being Scaring The Hoes, The Ghost~Pop Tape Remaster, and I Lay Down My Life For You, which notably came out a year later), many fans didn't expect this one to be in the roster, but with the 10th (ish) anniversary of the album, it just made sense. What all does it change, though? Pretty much everything. For the worse
I'm not one to hate on remasters. Sometimes you just don't get it right the first time (I mean, have you ever sat down and listened to The Life of Pablo's first version? It was rough.) but this remaster killed a lot of the vibe of the original album. For this section, I've taken the relevant information from this helpful reddit post, which I largely agree with (main disagreement being that I don't prefer any of the remastered songs to the originals). I originally wrote the following as a changelog largely rewritten from the reddit infographic, but, come on now. I couldn't avoid it. I've left some critiques as well.
Now, sure, I can sit here and pretend to rewrite a reddit infographic slightly differently, but why do I not like this remaster?
Well, for me, The Ghost~Pop Tape is all about its ambience. It's a calm, slow album, with the high points encompassing deeper and deeper pits of sadness and general wallowing that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Essentially, if you didn't have Pu$$y #3 after Call Me Maybe, you would leave the album wanting to kill yourself. The pacing is cut up with the interludes akin to something like a Boards of Canada album to further accentuate those stronger, sadder notes. Additionally, I really just find the mixing of the remaster to be much worse. The songs are much weaker and faster, and the only change I wanted came with a massive drawback (♥, which if you've seen my opinion of it, is notable for being the worst mixed (loudest) song on the album, had its background vocals inexplicably COMPLETELY CUT OUT, leaving behind a husk of an instrumental, which whilst still beautiful, isn't enough to stand on its own in the same way it did before). Additionally, as I described above, the mixing isn't the only problem here. It's plagued with technical problems with panning, reverb, synth sequencing, and audio playback, that massively bring down this remaster.
Overall, I genuinely believe the significantly more clueless Devon in 2013 made a better mix to the album than the same person a whole 10 years later. I don't personally believe this needed a remaster of any kind. I find it perfect as is and this remaster is a genuinely very intriguing thing as I have no clue how some of these errors happened, or what compelled Devon to pitch up and/or alter the mixing on so many of these songs.
There's already a lot to take in. But it keeps going.
As I showed above, The Ghost~Pop Tape wasn't a one-and-done endeavour. There were a lot of different versions for it, some with new songs and some with cut songs. I'll cover the most relevant songs and give my thoughts on them as well.
M.U.G.E.N. (with rap): This is a largely reworked version of the song which goes on for about 2 minutes longer than the normal version and features rapping from Devon himself. I find it nice to listen to from time to time.
Call Me Maybe (Single): I'll say it right now, this version is significantly inferior.
It's nearly the same as the album version, except for two major differences. The mixing is different, and it's missing the whistling after the second verse and before the synthesizer solo at the end. Could be worse, yes, but that whistling is a pretty essential part (in my opinion). Interestingly, the remaster also uses this version of the song.
The most noteworthy aspect of the song is probably the music video, uploaded not to joechillworld but to the Generation Y Youtube account (now known as the JPEGMAFIA account), and unlisted some unknown amount of time later. You can watch it here.
Pu$$y #3 (with rap): This version of the song is identical, except for featuring rapping from past-and-present collaborator ZenDash. It's featured on his bootleg, GenY6, which also includes some other songs that I felt were less relevant to include their own entries for.
Untitled³: With this entry I'm referring to the version of the song present in V4 (it would later show up in the remaster). This version includes a new outro after the 10-ish seconds of silence, with just six words, repeated four times by a text-to-speech bot:
The Ghost~Pop Tape is over.
You can hear the laptop clicks for every repetition, and a few seconds after, it's done. The album ends.
ODB / Piano Baby Medley: There's a few interesting things about this version.
First off, although it seems like it's just the two songs together, it's actually about a minute longer, featuring some cut talking inbetween the two songs (as if the outros and intros weren't long enough to begin with).
Second, and more interestingly, the version of ODB used for this song is different, as it doesn't have the clipping that the normal song does. This is the same as the version of the song featured in V4, but it was (inexplicably) changed for the expanded version of the album. I'm unsure if the Ben Yhudda version of the song is the version with or without clipping.
Sakura: The version I'm referring to is the remastered version (crazy, I know). This version is notable for including an outro speech that I referenced in my review, which I believe (don't quote me on this) was also present in the original, but it was too quiet to be understandable at all. This speech is probably the highlight of the remaster and a worthy reason of checking this song out on that version.
Silver St. Cloud: This song is what the demo of Pardon Me Michael (Michelle?) was about. Devon used this song a few times.
It was released as a single in 2012, with a very pretty cover art showing two blurry stick figures. Looks kind of like a Coin locker kid cover.
The beat was later given to Akello Light for her EP "Green Tea Mint 6: Libations & Healing". I'm personally not very fond of this project, and her feature on the song is very strange to say the least. It's notably mostly not her doing anything over the song at all, with the rapping being handled by another guy, but her outro is strange as well. The song here was called "Humans Reflect Qliphoth" and the beat is cut off prematurely at around 1:30.
After this, it was used in the extended version as the Pardon Me Michael demo, being a very shoddily made phone recording of Devon singing the song in the bathroom which eventually transitions into a more normal recording of the song. The vocals are largely sparse and quiet.
Air Guitar / HBK: This is practically an entirely new song.
Spanning 9 minutes and 18 seconds, the combo song includes an intro made by a fan called Florence, lasting about 3 minutes. It combines elements of ♥ and HBK to create a drastically different sound. After this, there's a much higher pitched version of HBK with Devon rapping over the beat. The highlight bar for me is as follows:
How could any girl want me
When all I do is stay wanting?
The song also includes ♥'s sirens, albeit MUCH quieter (I honestly prefer this song being quieter as in the final album I find it to be the loudest song by a long shot). Afterwards there's a small outro with a weird synth (almost vocal sounding) and some dialogue. After the dialogue is where the normal version of HBK starts.
It's largely unchanged, although the mixing is slightly different as it clips at the very beginning and at some points in the song (on the particularly low notes) you can hear the bass plugin breaking up. The whole song is quieter, really. It's only the bass that stays as loud as it is on the final version. The outro of the song is significantly longer, but doesn't include "Violent fighting to come again", instead just having the pad play out for one short note. Some dialogue later, and the song ends.
Black Materia: Big fan of this song! Albeit one of the more simple cuts, being just an FF10(?) sample chopped up and looped, it still has a lot of charm. This song comes in the form of two instrumentals (a shorter one and a longer, quieter one) and a version where Devon raps on the song. The rapping is fine, I'd place it as one of the lower songs on The Rockwood Escape Plan if it were on that album. I believe this song was discovered by it being found on a version of GenY5 floating around on Soulseek. For my weird fucked up version of GenY5 I found on Soulseek, you can see here.
This is my favorite album of all time. Easy as is. I've already gone at length as to why this is so I'm not gonna take up much time with the conclusion. The execution of the music, the concept, the sheer commitment to sticking out one last time, even when you've lost all hope, easily settles this as my favorite album of all time. I don't know when or if this will ever be topped, but for now I'm extremely happy with this as my favorite.
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